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LMGI COMPASS
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Winter 2020
As residents of Massachusetts have long known, the Alcott
world still exists there, at least in terms of historic buildings. Pres-
ervation groups like Historic New England and The Trustees of
Reservations offered the film company access to numerous loca-
tions, including small museums that preserved furnishings of the
period. "Because of the subject matter and the book, they were
willing to open their doors and have us film there," Dresser says.
"Some also do special events and weddings, so they're used to
people coming through the house and touring." Dresser found
himself eliminating any sign of modernity before shooting could
commence. "We came in and removed all the modern bits," he
says. "We took the lighting out and hid smoke detectors and tele-
phones. These places were originally built for gas lamps. We had
to create a look before people had electricity. We had to bring real
places back to the way they looked in the late 1800s."
"Doug does a lot of things," executive producer/UPM Adam
Merims says, explaining why Dresser was tapped to be SLM. "He
had just returned from Korea on Black Panther. Little Women is not
an action film and doesn't have the same amount of resources.
Usually they'd hire an LM from the area, but there are only a few
people who do locations in Boston, and none were really avail-
able. People are often nervous about bringing non-local LMs into
Boston, but we only shot about six days in Boston proper. Doug
is really skilled at going into places that he's never been before.
We worked together in Atlanta on Baby Driver, so I rationalized
in my mind that he could do Little Women. KALM Snappy Oliver/
LMGI was also on Baby Driver. Working with people more than
once meant that I knew their strengths."
GETTING STARTED
"I come from more of an action-film background," says Dresser,
who has worked on such pictures as Kill Bill: Vol 1, The Revenant
and Gemini Man. "When I took Little Women, I was so excited. I
thought, 'I won't have to do any car chases.' But when you get into
a situation where you can't see any streetlights, electrical wires
or pavement, you realize you have to create every element and
make it as authentic as possible. That adds a whole new layer of
challenges."
He arrived in Boston about four months before the 50-day
shoot started. "Location scout Mark Fitzgerald, from the Boston
area, did a lot of the preliminary scouting six months before we
started shooting," he says. "Some of the locations were available.
Others weren't. But we had time to craft the look of the film. We
had ballroom scenes, party scenes, street scenes, plus New York,
The New York streets through which
a dejected Jo will walk were filmed
in Lawrence, MA.
